Recently I've decided to come back in W40k, after a long pause, to upgrade my Tau 5th edition army into a new 8th one. Allas, my battleforce was dumped by my dear mother, and only an old-school commander suit has survived this catastrophy.As such, my objective here is simple, building a new 2000pts army, for the least money possible while statying competitive in the 8th. While no major purchase wil be done beefore new codex, I've already established a 2000pts multi-role list lthat will guide my shopping. I'd be glad if you could give me some opinions.

I started with a list based on Striking Scorpion's Tau list that seemed to work well, with a strong base of Fire buffed by characters, a deep strking Crisis component to wreak havoc in the back lines, and a infiltration component to skirmish. At first I thought replacing the Stormsurge (expensive and ambitious mini) by a couple of Hammerheads (more doable). But after lurcking in this forum, I decided to discard Brodsides too, as they are very expensive (points and euros) and not very effective. I hesistated to take one or 2 Devilfish to take full advantage of the Breachers and add some troop mobility to the army, but it seems that having only a couple of vehicles is dangerous, (that's also why I discarded the Hammerheads. I also wanted to ave a maximum of command points, because those seems decisive in the 8th.

I would create a fire base of Strike teams, with Breachers teams in cover or on the flanks around the Etherial and Fireblade, Darkstrider as well as the 2 Missile commanders. Crisis team and Fusion commanders in Manta Strike, and Ghostkeel/Stealthsuit combo infiltrated for skirmish and droping homing beacon for Crisis.The Drone shield squad would be deployed next to the missile commanders.

The Base of Fire would provide Marker lights as well as medium range support fire thanks to Missile commanders (kind of low cost Broadsides), Pulse Drones and Fireblade. Darkstrider will be used when the line is overhelmed to allow retreat and shooting, to focus some ennemies with its -1 to toughness, or to counter deepstriking ennemies with the breachers. The ethereal, in addition to its morale buff (my FW will never flee), will provide rerolls for 1s, on targets without markerlights. The base of fire could be deployed either in one big blob, or in 2 smaller ones. I'm not sure the Breachers are worth it because of the lack of DF, but they could prove usefull to counter deepstrike or move on objectives later on. I gave the Puretide cheap to the Fireblade because it's the character the less exposed to risk.

The Stealthsuits and their drone give me a very powerfull BS4+ S5 firepower great to kill masses, while the Ghostkeel provide a more anti-elite anti-vehicle/monster capability. I could make the Ghostkeel full fusion, but with its BS I'm not sure it's worth it while the ionraker is a good mulitole weapon. I still keep the Fusion Blaster because I already have plenty of Burst Cannons.

The Fusion commanders would be deployed first to kill transports or major armored units/monsters while being screened by the stealth suits ideally. Then I would drop the Crisis team to counter the counter attack and clean up. An alternative loaodut for Crisis team would be 2 Flamer + ATS using homing beacon, but I like the versatility of the CIB.

Other :

This list has the advantage of being very cheap to assemble : in addition to my remaing crisis commander, it only requires the starter box, the rapid insertion force, a couple of fire warrior boxes and a pathfinder box, around 300 euros, quite a bargain.

I just noticed that I had made several errors in my list, both points wise and rules wise. This led me to slightly reorganise and modify my list. I deleted the Ethereal and replaced Darsktrider by another Fireblade. I also added a unit of 6 gun drones that will be used as I see fit at the moment. I could have made my Firewarrior teams 6 instead of 5, but this would have needed an extra firewarrior box.

The advantage of this new iteration is that I can split my firebase in two, which will force my ennemy either to split his forces, either to charge only one of the firebase, while the other one will be free to fire. Each Firebase will be made of a Fireblade, a Missile Commander, a Pathfinder team and its drones, 2 strike teams and one breacher team.

FoxZz wrote:I just noticed that I had made an error in my list, my Missiles Commanders were too cheap, I corrected the price and had to remove the Ethereal from the list. Which means that if a Fire Warrior squad takes 4 losses and I roll a 5, my last fire warrior will be lost. I will also be more reliant on markerlights. I also reorganised it to get more command points and did some loadout changes.

So here is the new and more compact list, same strategy than the above post :

Hey Foxzz! Just another Shas here, but I notice a few things that might be helpful. Most of your list looks solid, but there are a few minor ambiguities: - You have too many drones on the XV-25 teams, I believe they cap at two, which also saves you some points!- On pathfinder team I don't think you can take 2 pulse accelerator drones, again, points savings!

As for the units themselves:- Really try to fill all your hard points, the unit that sticks out is the missile commanders, a common 4th slot is ATS for that build. If you REALLY don't want to fill it a 2 pt. multi tracker is sub-optimal, but alright.

- people like to debate on whether taking breachers without devilfish is a good strategy as they depend on getting in that 5 inch range to really maximize their potential. I think they're alright as deep strike flank protection, but can end up underutilized without a transport.

You mentioned the that you were starting from scratch and buying units, and you're totally right about the start collecting box and rapid insertion force being the way to go. My only thought is that fire warriors as a separate box are disproportionately expensive as you end up with basically 1 1/2 units worth of parts. Cutting down to a single battalion and adding a second crisis team would let you get enough fire warriors out of 2 start collecting boxes. The start collecting boxes also come with about 8 drones each and are all around useful to have a lot of.

All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; Unto the place whither the rivers go, Thither they go again.

gunrock wrote:Hey Foxzz! Just another Shas here, but I notice a few things that might be helpful. Most of your list looks solid, but there are a few minor ambiguities: - You have too many drones on the XV-25 teams, I believe they cap at two, which also saves you some points!- On pathfinder team I don't think you can take 2 pulse accelerator drones, again, points savings!

As for the units themselves:- Really try to fill all your hard points, the unit that sticks out is the missile commanders, a common 4th slot is ATS for that build. If you REALLY don't want to fill it a 2 pt. multi tracker is sub-optimal, but alright.

- people like to debate on whether taking breachers without devilfish is a good strategy as they depend on getting in that 5 inch range to really maximize their potential. I think they're alright as deep strike flank protection, but can end up underutilized without a transport.

You mentioned the that you were starting from scratch and buying units, and you're totally right about the start collecting box and rapid insertion force being the way to go. My only thought is that fire warriors as a separate box are disproportionately expensive as you end up with basically 1 1/2 units worth of parts. Cutting down to a single battalion and adding a second crisis team would let you get enough fire warriors out of 2 start collecting boxes. The start collecting boxes also come with about 8 drones each and are all around useful to have a lot of.

Hello !

Thank you for your answer !

I hadn't noticed your message, I indeed found out about the drone mistake on the Stealth team, which led me to edit the list quite significantly as you can see above. For the Missile commanders, I had included the ATS in the points, just forgot to write it down >> here is the edited list >>

About breachers, I really don't know, I could turn them into regular Strike teams and delete a drone from the Fast attack slot so both can have Markerlight. But in the same time, they can be usefull as a back line anti deep strike unit, as you said, or to take down heavy charging units, or move on objectives later on. I didn't include a Devilfish for them because I've read that lne vehicles gets popped very quickly and after watching some batreps, it seems they can do pretty well. I guess I will decide with the experience.

About Pathfinders drones, Index says, 1 Pulse drone and/or 1 Grav drone, to me it means that I can 2 pulse, or 2 grav or 1 of each.

I've checked rapidly, to include a second XV8 team, with the cheapest configuration (Elite - XV8 Crisis Team w/ 6 Flamers ; 3 ATS ; 6 Gun/Shield Drones = 252pts), I would need to remove, in addition to the 2 firewarriors team, 1 Stealth team and one Fireblade. I would end up with 8 extra points.

If I restrict my unit choice strictly to the minis available in 2 Starter Box, 1 Rapid Insertion and 1 Pathfinder box, I get the foollowing list :

About breachers, I really don't know, I could turn them into regular Strike teams and delete a drone from the Fast attack slot so both can have Markerlight. But in the same time, they can be usefull as a back line anti deep strike unit, as you said, or to take down heavy charging units, or move on objectives later on. I didn't include a Devilfish for them because I've read that lne vehicles gets popped very quickly and after watching some batreps, it seems they can do pretty well. I guess I will decide with the experience.

About Pathfinders drones, Index says, 1 Pulse drone and/or 1 Grav drone, to me it means that I can 2 pulse, or 2 grav or 1 of each.

I've checked rapidly, to include a second XV8 team, with the cheapest configuration (Elite - XV8 Crisis Team w/ 6 Flamers ; 3 ATS ; 6 Gun/Shield Drones = 252pts), I would need to remove, in addition to the 2 firewarriors team, 1 Stealth team and one Fireblade. I would end up with 8 extra points.

If I restrict my unit choice strictly to the minis available in 2 Starter Box, 1 Rapid Insertion and 1 Pathfinder box, I get the foollowing list :

Otherwise, Both lists are about the same price to acquire (the other is at 300 euros without GW Fireblades), but this one has 2 less commands points, which one is the best in your opinion ?

You know, play what you like, in the way that brings you the most enjoyment. Pretty inevitably, you'll end up with a bunch of different types of units that you can build a variety of lists with, and both of those box sets actually have a really great selection of core units in them. Personally, I found that I ended up buying extra boxes of pathfinders, firewarriors, XV-8, stealthsuits, and commanders and I would of saved a bit of money just buying them in box sets, mostly because there's a limit to how many XV-8 you actually need. Most battlesuit lists won't run more then 2 squads of 3 XV-8 and maybe a 3-5 commanders so having more then 10 is a bit redundant, but the box is the only way to get firewarriors cheap.To clarify, the strike team boxes do come with 10 fire warriors, but also parts for breachers which mean you usually end up with 10 extra weapons, heads, backpacks, and bits, and no bodies or legs to build a team. For whatever reason they just end up costing more to buy separately then say 10 pathfinders. On amazon a 10 man strike team (with 2 drones) is 42 dollars, a 10 man pathfinder team (with 2 drones) is 29.75,a separate box of XV-8 (w. 6 drones) is 63.74, and an Ethereal is 25 dollars, while the start collecting box is includes a strike team, 3 xv-8, an ethereal on a hover drone and 8 drones so 72.25. So even ignoring the ethereal, its about 30 percent cheaper to buy your strike teams/XV-8 in the start collecting box, which adds up. Sorry, that was kinda a long tangent.

As for your list, both of them are pretty well rounded. The only things that I would consider changing are all preferential. Usually, I would rather take 3rd squad of pathfinders over a 4th strike team because I only run enough infantry to get battalion, but strike teams are still useful. I don't run the flamers because I don't like the potential loss of first turn shooting, but they are still a strong pick for your anti-infantry especially since your running the stealth team+Beacon combo also. Missile pods are considered overcosted, but one of the few decent 36'' weapons. I prefer a 3rd fusion commander, but some very good lists run the 3 MS +ATS setup. I don't play a ghostkeel because I don't own one, and spent all my money on separate XV-8, pathfinders, and stealth teams and screwed up no buying the box set It's a totally reasonable choice, and also I think one of the nicest looking tau models. The other two things are super minor: Generally, you want to break gun drone squads into minimum squad size or close to that to avoid morale losses, so running 2 squads of 4x gun drones is preferable to a squad of 8x unless the reduce drops is particularly relevant. The other is that most people prefer the fire blade to the ethereal for the volley fire and +2 markerlight, and he has great synergy with gun drones.

Your doing everything right. Those are both good looking lists. It really just comes down to playstyle, whether you emphasize playing gunline or deep strike, and whichever way you go your not that far from the other list.

All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; Unto the place whither the rivers go, Thither they go again.

Looks like a solid list but there are definitely a few places to improve it. First as Gunrock pointed ot the Pathfinders can't double up on PA drones, and plus they aren't even necessary since this list isn't really running a synergistic gunline anyway. Second, there's no real need to run the Ethereal, and the PEN isn't going to do much good on it anyway. Third, your Missile Pod Commanders can probably shed their Shield Drones, since they'll operate behind your lines, while the Stealthsuits would do well to take a pair of Shield Drones instead of Marker Drones; with a Flamer XV8 squad in reserve that Homing Beacon's durability will be paramount. Finally, the 8x Gun Drone team is going to take pretty serious morale losses, so we can fix that by splitting it down. Changes made, here's the list:

At 1884 points you have plenty of room to grow. If you have two Start Collecting sets, one Rapid Insertion Cadre, and one box of Pathfinders, that still leaves you with a few more models to use- namely, the second Stealthsuit squad! If we add them in and add in a few more drones, we can make this list, which should pack a bit more punch!

gunrock wrote:You know, play what you like, in the way that brings you the most enjoyment. Pretty inevitably, you'll end up with a bunch of different types of units that you can build a variety of lists with, and both of those box sets actually have a really great selection of core units in them. Personally, I found that I ended up buying extra boxes of pathfinders, firewarriors, XV-8, stealthsuits, and commanders and I would of saved a bit of money just buying them in box sets, mostly because there's a limit to how many XV-8 you actually need. Most battlesuit lists won't run more then 2 squads of 3 XV-8 and maybe a 3-5 commanders so having more then 10 is a bit redundant, but the box is the only way to get firewarriors cheap.To clarify, the strike team boxes do come with 10 fire warriors, but also parts for breachers which mean you usually end up with 10 extra weapons, heads, backpacks, and bits, and no bodies or legs to build a team. For whatever reason they just end up costing more to buy separately then say 10 pathfinders. On amazon a 10 man strike team (with 2 drones) is 42 dollars, a 10 man pathfinder team (with 2 drones) is 29.75,a separate box of XV-8 (w. 6 drones) is 63.74, and an Ethereal is 25 dollars, while the start collecting box is includes a strike team, 3 xv-8, an ethereal on a hover drone and 8 drones so 72.25. So even ignoring the ethereal, its about 30 percent cheaper to buy your strike teams/XV-8 in the start collecting box, which adds up. Sorry, that was kinda a long tangent.

You are absolutely right, I hadn't noticed it before your intervention, buying a second starter pack instead of extra individual boxes, in addition to being more cost-effective, is straight up cheaper for a 2000pts list.

gunrock wrote:As for your list, both of them are pretty well rounded. The only things that I would consider changing are all preferential. Usually, I would rather take 3rd squad of pathfinders over a 4th strike team because I only run enough infantry to get battalion, but strike teams are still useful. I don't run the flamers because I don't like the potential loss of first turn shooting, but they are still a strong pick for your anti-infantry especially since your running the stealth team+Beacon combo also. Missile pods are considered overcosted, but one of the few decent 36'' weapons. I prefer a 3rd fusion commander, but some very good lists run the 3 MS +ATS setup. I don't play a ghostkeel because I don't own one, and spent all my money on separate XV-8, pathfinders, and stealth teams and screwed up no buying the box set It's a totally reasonable choice, and also I think one of the nicest looking tau models. The other two things are super minor: Generally, you want to break gun drone squads into minimum squad size or close to that to avoid morale losses, so running 2 squads of 4x gun drones is preferable to a squad of 8x unless the reduce drops is particularly relevant. The other is that most people prefer the fire blade to the ethereal for the volley fire and +2 markerlight, and he has great synergy with gun drones.

Your doing everything right. Those are both good looking lists. It really just comes down to playstyle, whether you emphasize playing gunline or deep strike, and whichever way you go your not that far from the other list.

I agree on Flamers, 2 CIB+ATS is a lot more versatile and easy to play with but it's also a lot more expensive points wise. I also love the Flamers, I think it's a vrey cool weapon. With all the shield drones, it will also be a great unit to screen the Commanders and the Flamers will be brilliant in overwatch. If I manage to plant a beacon within 8", fusion blasters will be in melta range and Flamer suits will clean the ennemy vehicles survivor turn one. With the ATS it makes them very strong against Primaris, TEQ, light vehicles, and from a safe range.I didn't believe either in the Missile Commander at first too, but I wanted something to replace Broadsides providing long range firepower down the range and with the ATS, it's 6 shots almost guaranteed to hit with markerlights, S7 AP-2 and D3 dammage, which is very significant. Agaisnt multiwounds ennemies it will be great, it also provides a strong unit to protect from deep striking units.

I really like this list, I think it's the best list available if you restrict yourself to the 4 boxes. I think it can do well against most threats, and my suits are all well protected.A few remarks, is the drone controller really neeeded on the Stealth suits considering, all units besides the CIB team run Shield drones ? By the way, should CIB team switch itself to Shield drones ?If I remove the 2 drones controllers from the Stealth suits, and 2 gun drones from the Support drone team, it would give me 27 points to play with, I can either, replace Ghostkeel burst cannons by 2 Fusion Blasters (they are redundant now with the addition of the second Stealth team, while I don't have that many Fusion Blasters), or I could get one of the Stealth suits team equipped with 3xATS which would increase its dammage output.

I really like this list, I think it's the best list available if you restrict yourself to the 4 boxes. I think it can do well against most threats, and my suits are all well protected.A few remarks, is the drone controller really neeeded on the Stealth suits considering, all units besides the CIB team run Shield drones ? By the way, should CIB team switch itself to Shield drones ?If I remove the 2 drones controllers from the Stealth suits, and 2 gun drones from the Support drone team, it would give me 27 points to play with, I can either, replace Ghostkeel burst cannons by 2 Fusion Blasters (they are redundant now with the addition of the second Stealth team, while I don't have that many Fusion Blasters), or I could get one of the Stealth suits team equipped with 3xATS which would increase its damage output.

Personally I would actually put Gun Drones on the Flamer XV8s, but that's up to you. 6x Shield Drones work well when the Flamer XV8s are "footslogging" (i.e. not using Manta Strike) but otherwise the 24 S5 shots are alpha that's too good to pass up. Again though that's my personal preference, play some games and find out what you like.

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of Ghostkeels with Fusion Blasters as I think it works best as an anti-infantry unit. For anti-tank four Commanders should be enough.

Also, I just realized- you aren't going to have four Commanders if you buy those boxes. Are you planning on running one Enforcer Commander and three XV8 Commanders?

Arka0415 wrote:Personally I would actually put Gun Drones on the Flamer XV8s, but that's up to you. 6x Shield Drones work well when the Flamer XV8s are "footslogging" (i.e. not using Manta Strike) but otherwise the 24 S5 shots are alpha that's too good to pass up. Again though that's my personal preference, play some games and find out what you like.

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of Ghostkeels with Fusion Blasters as I think it works best as an anti-infantry unit. For anti-tank four Commanders should be enough.

Also, I just realized- you aren't going to have four Commanders if you buy those boxes. Are you planning on running one Enforcer Commander and three XV8 Commanders?

Yeah, I definitely could try Gun drones on Flamer suits, they cost the same so it's not a problem.

Yes, the Commander from the box, 1 old model of Commander, last survivor of my previous battlegroup and 2 XV8s turned into Commander. I will have 2 commanders total, one of which is outdated, so I have not really a choice.Do you think it might cause problems ?

FoxZz wrote:Yes, the Commander from the box, 1 old model of Commander, last survivor of my previous battlegroup and 2 XV8s turned into Commander. I will have 2 commanders total, one of which is outdated, so I have not really a choice.Do you think it might cause problems ?

Gotcha. It won't be a problem in a casual group, but from a competitive standpoint having multiple different models all represent the same unit could be an issue. The goal of WYSIWYG is to make sure your opponent can see your army and immediately know what everything is. If a number of different models are all Commanders it could, possibly, confuse an opponent. Again, not a problem outright, but just something to stay aware of.

I just edited my list, after some extra read and thoughts on the forum:

Changes:

- No more ATS on the Crisis teams, I went for more dakka instead with more weapons, DC and gun drones. It seems to be more effective.- To make out for the loss of AP, I gave ATS to the Ghostkeel, I feel it synergize better with it. I'll try to always stay out of the 12" zone, so it can benefit from the -2 to hit, to compensate the loss of the shield generator. Prime targets will be armoured infantry and heavy infantry, it's also cheaper.- Lastly, gave 2 Markerdrones to a Stealth team, as those synergize very well together, it also gives me a total of 16 markerlights, and with the stratagem, it should provide two 1+BS targets. The other stealth team has been stripped down from useless supporst system to focus on beacon delivrery. The Markerlight team will act as a back up beacon.

The strategy remains roughly the same, Missile commanders and Strike teams form a gunline or two separate castles and cap objectives, Ghostkeel and Markerlight Stealth team roam in the middle to provide dsitraction and skirmish. Beacon Stealth team advance and call Flamer team and Fusion Commanders. CIB Crisis team is either keep in reserve to counter ennemy deep strikes, either dropped too where necessary. Pathfinders find the bets position to provide Markerlights. The Gun drones can be use where necessary to provide screens to units without drones.

Fusion commanders are used to take out the thoughest of the vehicles. Missiles commanders target the lightest ones (Dreadnought, Sentinels) and multi-wounds units / heavy infantry. Stealth teams, Flamer Crisis and Firewarriors target chaff and light infantry, Ghostkeel and CIB Crisis target MEQ, TEQ, high tougness units. I think this list covers everything I can meet on the table with enough overlapping so that it stays flexible.

Honestly, this looks absolutely deadly! A few easy fixes though- first, drop one Fire Warrior squad and add a squad of 5 more Gun Drones. Second, your Ghostkeel is overpriced by 30 points, so it's actually 181. That said, your list is 1972 points... is there a little more we can remove to add a Fireblade? Could be a handy option.

Also, are the two Homing Beacons really necessary? I could imagine you'd be okay with only one.

Arka0415 wrote:Honestly, this looks absolutely deadly! A few easy fixes though- first, drop one Fire Warrior squad and add a squad of 5 more Gun Drones. Second, your Ghostkeel is overpriced by 30 points, so it's actually 181. That said, your list is 1972 points... is there a little more we can remove to add a Fireblade? Could be a handy option.

Also, are the two Homing Beacons really necessary? I could imagine you'd be okay with only one.

What do you think?

Hadn't noticed my error for the Ghostkeel indeed !

So with those 30 points, if we remove the Drone Controller and replace 2 marker drones with 2 shield drones from the Markerlight stealth team, we get 39 points, just enough to buy a Fireblade.

The question is, is there enough gun drones in the 4 boxes to assemble 8 SD and 22 GD ? Otherwise, this seems like a great list, I will keep it, will see what the new codex changes. Meanwhile, if any one tries it, I'd be glad to have some feedback as I won't buy new models myself before codex release.

Talking about boxes, the Rapid Insertion Force, has disapeared from GW store, so I was currently thinking to an alternative list, with the same spirit, and in the same price range (290 euros/ 360 us dollars/ 255 pouds).I'm quite sure it would imply 3x Starter box, 1 Pathfinder and 1 Stealth box, but with the money left, I'm wondering what would be interesting: a Fireblade ofc, an extra Pathfinder to bring some rail guns ? extra stealth team ? Vespids ?

For now here is the list I've done, with 3 starter box, 1 Pathfinder, 1 Stealth. I also have an extra commander from a previous army.

I could take more drones, but not sure there is enough in the box, if I take Vespids, then Breachers would turn in Strike again, I could take an extra pathfinder box and have 4x 5 man team with 3 markerlights and 2 railguns, an extra stealth team for more beacon and skirmish, one or 2 Fireblades to buff all those FW, many options are open. Loadouts can change too, 3 Fusion commanders or even 4 instead of 2, Flamer suits, etc ?

Of course, this is mainly a theorical exercice, as I won't buy any new model before the new Codex gets out.

In terms of firepower? No, not with the Fire Warriors alone... add in the Gun Drones though and the Fireblade's buff really shines! The Fireblade also offers a nice accurate Markerlight, which could be handy. Not an auto-include, but something to consider.

I edited my post above, with some additional info and thoughts. Regarding homing beacons, in addition to redundancy, it also gives the opportunity of close deep striking in different locations, which seems particularly interesting with multiple Fusion commanders are large number of suits. As for the boxes it was : 2x Starter, 1 Pathfinder, 1 Rapid Insertion Force.

FoxZz wrote:

Arka0415 wrote:Honestly, this looks absolutely deadly! A few easy fixes though- first, drop one Fire Warrior squad and add a squad of 5 more Gun Drones. Second, your Ghostkeel is overpriced by 30 points, so it's actually 181. That said, your list is 1972 points... is there a little more we can remove to add a Fireblade? Could be a handy option.

Also, are the two Homing Beacons really necessary? I could imagine you'd be okay with only one.

What do you think?

Hadn't noticed my error for the Ghostkeel indeed !

So with those 30 points, if we remove the Drone Controller and replace 2 marker drones with 2 shield drones from the Markerlight stealth team, we get 39 points, just enough to buy a Fireblade.

The question is, is there enough gun drones in the 4 boxes to assemble 8 SD and 22 GD ? Otherwise, this seems like a great list, I will keep it, will see what the new codex changes. Meanwhile, if any one tries it, I'd be glad to have some feedback as I won't buy new models myself before codex release.

Talking about boxes, the Rapid Insertion Force, has disapeared from GW store, so I was currently thinking to an alternative list, with the same spirit, and in the same price range (290 euros/ 360 us dollars/ 255 pouds).I'm quite sure it would imply 3x Starter box, 1 Pathfinder and 1 Stealth box, but with the money left, I'm wondering what would be interesting: a Fireblade ofc, an extra Pathfinder to bring some rail guns ? extra stealth team ? Vespids ?

For now here is the list I've done, with 3 starter box, 1 Pathfinder, 1 Stealth. I also have an extra commander from a previous army.

I could take more drones, but not sure there is enough in the box, if I take Vespids, then Breachers would turn in Strike again, I could take an extra pathfinder box and have 4x 5 man team with 3 markerlights and 2 railguns, an extra stealth team for more beacon and skirmish, one or 2 Fireblades to buff all those FW, many options are open. Loadouts can change too, 3 Fusion commanders or even 4 instead of 2, Flamer suits, etc ?

Of course, this is mainly a theorical exercice, as I won't buy any new model before the new Codex gets out.

FoxZz wrote:I edited my post above, with some additional info and thoughts. Regarding homing beacons, in addition to redundancy, it also gives the opportunity of close deep striking in different locations, which seems particularly interesting with multiple Fusion commanders are large number of suits.

Remember that you can only use one Homing Beacon per turn, so this limits you to beta strike at best, sadly.

FoxZz wrote:I could take more drones, but not sure there is enough in the box, if I take Vespids, then Breachers would turn in Strike again, I could take an extra pathfinder box and have 4x 5 man team with 3 markerlights and 2 railguns, an extra stealth team for more beacon and skirmish, one or 2 Fireblades to buff all those FW, many options are open. Loadouts can change too, 3 Fusion commanders or even 4 instead of 2, Flamer suits, etc?

A few things first- you do have 3 Start Collecting sets, 1 Pathfinder box, and 1 Stealthsuit box, right? I'm pretty sure those sets will allow you to build up to 17 Gun Drones, with remaining parts to build 2 special Pathfinder Drones and 10 Marker or Shield Drones.

If you're thinking about the new codex, then honestly, I would hold off on list-building for now. I think it's nearly a guarantee that Gun Drones and Commanders will get worse, while Riptides, Ghostkeels, Stormsurges, and Kroot will get better. This is a pattern we've seen across many recent releases- screening infantry and huge models are good in 8th Edition. With that said, I wouldn't really bother worrying about Commanders and Gun Drones, since they're probably going to get worse.

FoxZz wrote:I edited my post above, with some additional info and thoughts. Regarding homing beacons, in addition to redundancy, it also gives the opportunity of close deep striking in different locations, which seems particularly interesting with multiple Fusion commanders are large number of suits.

Remember that you can only use one Homing Beacon per turn, so this limits you to beta strike at best, sadly.

How, didn't noticed that. This is kind of a silly rule considering you pay for the extra beacon.

Arka0415 wrote:A few things first- you do have 3 Start Collecting sets, 1 Pathfinder box, and 1 Stealthsuit box, right? I'm pretty sure those sets will allow you to build up to 17 Gun Drones, with remaining parts to build 2 special Pathfinder Drones and 10 Marker or Shield Drones.If you're thinking about the new codex, then honestly, I would hold off on list-building for now. I think it's nearly a guarantee that Gun Drones and Commanders will get worse, while Riptides, Ghostkeels, Stormsurges, and Kroot will get better. This is a pattern we've seen across many recent releases- screening infantry and huge models are good in 8th Edition. With that said, I wouldn't really bother worrying about Commanders and Gun Drones, since they're probably going to get worse.

As of right now, I only have one old commander model at my disposal, last survivor of my ancient battlegroup. Both lists are made on potential buying package. The spirit of those lists really are "what is the best 2000pts list I can get from the lowest investment possible". That's why I used "bundles" boxes.

But as you said, most of it will change with the new codex, both balance and "bundles". It was really a theorical exercise.